Lewis Finishes Second In Istanbul

Felipe Massa won the Formula 1 Turkish Grand Prix in Istanbul yesterday in his Ferrari, beating out Lewis Hamilton by 3.7 seconds, who finished second in the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes F1 car.Kimi Raikkonen was third behind Hamilton in the other Ferrari, just a half second behind. The race was 58 laps and 309.36 kms with the pole position for the start won by Massa in the Ferrari during Saturday's qualifying. Lewis started the race in a third place grid position with his team mate Heikki Kovalainen out qualifying him into second place on the grid.

At the start of the race, Lewis launched his car into second place behind Massa, but there was a collision at the first corner and the safety car was deployed. On lap 2, the race was re-started and Lewis held his second place and by lap 10, he was just 1.5 seconds behind the race leader, Felipe Massa. On lap 24 Lewis out braked Massa and took the lead, and he built the gap to 8.3 seconds in front of Massa by lap 32. On Lap 45 Lewis pitted for his third stop and when he returned to the track, he was 5.2 seconds behind Massa and in second place. By the race end, Lewis was able to narrow Massa's lead to 3.7 seconds to finish just behind the Ferrari.

Lewis Hamilton said "I am so thrilled with today's result, and I think this is the best race ever for me. It's not about winning, it's about feeling that you extract 100% from yourself and the car, and I did that today... we knew that we would have to use a three stop strategy, as a precaution, as we had some issues with our tires."

Vodafone McLaren Mercedes' Ron Dennis said " Today we saw a truly phenomenal drive from Lewis, in which he optimised a three-stop strategy that we were forced to adopt as a consequence of concerns we had with his tires. As a result of eight points that his second-place finish netted him, he closed the gap on Kimi in the World Driver's Championship to just seven points"